Greetingman as culmination of South Korean soft power diplomacy in Latin America (original) (raw)
Public Diplomacy, Soft Power and Language: The Case of the Korean Language in Mexico City
Public Diplomacy (PD) is the third pillar of South Korean foreign policy. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PD aims to attract foreign audiences by means of art, knowledge transmission, media, language and foreign aid. When it comes to the Korean language, its global profile has seen an especially marked increase in recent years (Kim, 2009). Thus, this paper’s objective is to explain the relevance of the Korean language in the generation of South Korea’s soft power. I draw from César Villanueva’s reflections in order to problematize how language promotion can be translated into soft power at five different levels: the empathetic, the sympathetic, the geopolitical, the diplomatic and the utilitarian (2015: 140). I observe that in the case of the Korean language in Mexico City, soft power has the potential to be generated on three levels: it helps to increase knowledge of Korean culture (empathetic); it exercises symbolic persuasion (geopolitical), since the products of cultural industries are mostly in Korean; and it is used as a tool for economic transactions in Mexico City (utilitarian).
Formal Friendship, Real Suspicions: Diplomatic Relations between Mexico and South Korea, 1962-1987
México y la Cuenca del Pacífico, 2010
T his article deals with the initiation and development of diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Republic of Korea. Both countries started relations in 1962, but in a rather idiosyncratic way. While South Korea immediately opened an embassy and appointed a resident ambassador, Mexico made a deliberate effort to keep bilateral contacts to a bare minimum. Thus, Mexico only opened its embassy in Seoul in 1978 and posted a resident ambassador until 1987. The text addresses the explanation of this asymmetric relation, positing as main hypothesis that, given the antiimperialist lineages of its revolution, Mexico sought to establish a distance 1. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the 5th Kyung-Hee University-University of Guadalajara Workshop, The Asia-Pacific relations in the context of the global economic crisis, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, February 22-23, 2010. I wish to thank participants in the workshop for their kind comments. I also want to thank my Korean colleagues Kim Won-ho, Kwak Jae-sung, and Lim Hyo-sang for their helpful orientation during my research stay in Seoul in October-November, 2008. Usual caveats strongly apply. 2. José
Issues & Studies, 2022
This study aims to examine South Korean middle power diplomacy discourses using premodern Korea’s diplomatic thinking-cum-practice of sadae (serving the great) as a heuristic device. It is argued that current discourses of South Korea as a middle power resonate with sadae because they strive to secure the existing liberal international order led by the West and the United States. It also argues that it is both necessary and healthy for South Korean middle power diplomacy studies to denaturalize its self-evident faith in the existing liberal international order—a not universal but particular order among several possible others in history—with South Korea celebrating and appropriating liberal values. This would prepare South Korean middle power diplomacy research to tackle uncertainty, difference, and pluralism in global politics while producing more responsible and responsive scholarship in international relations.
East Asia, 2008
The mass media can be counted on to occasionally fixate on apparently significant cultural exchanges between North Korea and the rest of the world. In September 2000, the airwaves were filled with breathless coverage of an allegedly important development in summer 2000 at the Sydney Olympics: North and South Korea entered the stadium together during the opening and closing ceremonies under a flag symbolizing a unified Korean peninsula. The North Korean cheerleading squads of young women who made trips to Pusan Asian Games in 2002, the Summer Universiad in Taegu in 2003, and the Asian Athletics Championship in Inch'ǒn in 2005 became celebrities in their own right due in large part to the saturation coverage provided by South Korean and Japanese media of their every mesmerizing move. The New York Philharmonic's concert in Pyongyang in February 2008 also triggered another flurry of headlines, tailed by cautiously optimistic messages about the long-term and indirect effects of such performances. All of these news stories have usually been accompanied by brief summaries of the history of inter-Korean relations along with the requisite line about the absence of a peace treaty after the Korean War. Despite the proliferation of such journalistic coverage of inter-Korean cultural exchanges, it remains difficult to find sustained and systematic analyses in English on the subject. Perhaps unavoidably, the media coverage has tended to emphasize the newness and the importance of every exchange, and their potential impact in facilitating unification or at least generating improvements in North Korea's relations with the outside world. Thus, readers are left to ponder the extent to which these developments are actually new, and whether or not such exchanges in fact lead to short or long-term changes in international relations. Gabriel Jonsson's book, Towards Korean Reconciliation, aims to fill this lacuna by examining "what actual impact" these social-cultural exchanges and cooperation have had on inter-Korean relations (p.4). As Jonsson notes, there are numerous studies of inter-Korean socio-cultural exchanges by South Korean scholars, but this
South Korea: A Major Regional Power
2015
South Korea has a great importance not just for its neighbours (Japan, China, and North Korea), for the region of Central Asia or for the great powers (USA, Russia), but even for Europe. We cannot neglect the country’s aspiring future influence and importance around the world. The economic rising of Asia’s countries will bring attention on Central and Northeast Asia. I guess that Seoul will be included in many economic and political agreements and especially on issues concerning cultural diplomacy. South Korea’s economic performance, the improvement of services trade, foreign investments and its great resources prove the country’s assertive role on global stage. We cannot neglect South Korea’s ‘soft power’ expressed by its traditions, cultural values, soap operas, music already known in almost entire Europe. The success of public diplomacy for South Korea depends on its efficacy to promote its soft power. This is the most important factor of South Korea which could make it visible a...
Humanities and Social Sciences 10(4): 271-280 ISSN: 2330-8184, 2022
Over the past years, the concept of hard power has been overtaken by a new approach "Soft power". As a result, many countries compete to take advantage of this new power at their disposal by implementing in their foreign policies. For instance, numerous countries such as India (Bollywood), and the U.S (Hollywood) have extensively benefited from their soft power, as both countries' cinemas are considered the most potent cultural export. The following paper explores how the Japanese and South Korean government have been exploiting their soft power by coinciding with their national interest. Both countries were selected based on their limited military intervention despite dedicating a decent budget amount for defense. Especially when looking at Japan's firm stand policy that adheres to a non-military approach, therefore, increasing the probability of seeking other alternatives to expand its state's strength. In addition, the selection was carried out by taking into consideration the strong influence they hold in the region in the context of cultural aspects. Furthermore, we address how these tools of "Soft power" such as cultural diplomacy, education, and foreign aid have transformed both countries' images, especially Japan which had been criticized for its past imperialistic days. The article is qualitative in nature, we referred to the sufficient available relevant works of literature and papers to present soft power and its implication by focusing on two East Asian countries. Finally, we conclude that both countries deploy cultural diplomacy and education for diplomatic purposes and national branding while in the context of foreign aid diplomacy we suggest that it is more than of its humanitarian claims.